4 Ways to Overcome ADHD Challenges and Achieve Your Dreams

Take a cue from these middle-aged women living with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) -- don't let symptoms like disorganization, forgetfulness, and low self-esteem keep you from making your dreams a reality.

Spend Time Making Your Dream a Reality

Spending an hour a week on something you value or something pleasurable to you will help you move toward achieving larger life goals.

Find your passion, make your passion happen. At the close of the event in New York, a woman handed me a CD she had just released. On it, she sang a medley of songs, all of which she had written. I remembered her. We had worked together for a while on her struggle to reclaim her life and art. Then she moved away.

Back in Michigan, the next day, I unwrapped the CD and loaded it in my car’s player. I heard a woman’s evocative voice, singing her own moving songs. My eyes filled with tears. I remembered her disorganization and her ache to get back to what she loved doing, to being herself.

Whether your passion is humor, warmth, or the ability to work with numbers, people, or ideas, when you find yourself putting your life on hold, picture this woman. Ten years ago, she was sitting in a roomful of unfolded laundry, besieged by kids, seeing only her deficiencies. Then she gave herself permission to live, even as she struggled with her biggest ADD/ADHD challenges. You can, too.